


Conversations we should have had before

by PinkPunk010



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Academy era references, Angst, Conversations in the vault, Doctor - Freeform, Frenimies, Friendship, Implied Past Child Abuse, doctormaster - Freeform, missy - Freeform, twissy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-04 09:00:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11551899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkPunk010/pseuds/PinkPunk010
Summary: There are some conversations that need to be aired. If they are not aired, they fester, become poison to us all. Of course, there are some people who have maintained old grievances for thousands upon thousands of years.But now, with nothing else to do but ignore each other, maybe the Doctor and Missy will be able to air out a few conversations that should have been aired years beforehand.During the Vault Years: Conversations the Doctor and Missy may have had





	Conversations we should have had before

Thirty years into the promise of a thousand and it’s becoming harder for him to stay away. In the earlier days she had made it so damn easy. She taunted just enough to make him angry, to make him feel guilty, to make him lash out. She’d been angry that he was keeping a promise, that this was the bloody promise he’d deigned to keep. 

Thirty years it took her to calm down, to stop burning the inside of the vault and laughing in the flames. 

That actually happened, the bald one had been terrified that it was some elaborate plan to escape. It was only slightly, she just liked the pretty flames and the look of fear on the faces of the only two people she was allowed to play with. 

She could hear him outside the door, talking softy as he worked. He hadn’t done that in the beginning. But the longer they stayed put, the more she heard him whispering against the reinforced metal. She never answered. No point in rewarding his behaviour. 

But it was lonely, and turning her back on him was getting harder. It was harder for him and she took delight in that. He was coming more frequently, more often finding himself sat on the armchair he dragged into her sparse, cold space (her furniture had been taken after shed burnt it all and he’d swore he wouldn’t replace it again, so she’d burnt that set too) taking to her back as she knotted her handkerchief in novel ways.

She had asked for his help and he had delivered his end of the bargin, but it was still painful, still hard to forgive him as her jailor. Her fingers itched to build something, anything. She wanted to feel the rush in her veins when chaos reigned. She wanted to see the fear in petty species eyes and she wanted to rule them all. 

But she didn’t. 

She’d made a promise. 

And unlike some, she kept her promises. 

But she was curious. 

Why did he want to keep this promise? It was a question she had wanted to ask for so long and sheer stubborn pig headedness had prevented her this long. It would give her something new to think about after all, and planning an interdimensional cannon wasn’t much fun if you couldn’t put it into practice after all. What else was a lady to do?

So she interrupted him as he spoke one night, fascinated by how he instantly fell silent, so eager to have her engage with him. She lolled her head back, deliberately playfully, but never quite turning to him. She was still punishing him after all. Naughty boy.

“Tell me Doctor,” she’d asked conversationally, a bit to her “t"s and a roll to her "r"s. "How do you decide which promises to keep?” 

She'd wanted to unsettle him. She'd wanted to sent him scuttling to the door and out beyond to where the bald one would be waiting to scold like the may-wife had instructed. But there was a tug somewhere inside her soul that she had nearly forgotten, and she realised that she _wanted_ to know what his answer would be. She wanted to know because maybe then it would explain why he'd chosen to break the promise they'd made to each other as children on her fathers lands. 

.................................................................

 _How do you decide which promises to keep?_ she'd asked in that taunting, childish way reserved for him and others she felt beneath her. She'd framed it as a taunt. It was calculated to get under his skin and make him feel guilty for keeping her in this metal cage. She wanted his conscience to eat away at his skin with guilt. 

Nothing Missy did was uncalculated. She may give off the crazed appearance of a psychotic Mary Poppins, but she was clever. Oh so beautifully clever. Her mind was sharper now than it had been when they were children, when the bright shining _beauty_ of his mind had first drawn the young lonely boy in. She was sharper, yes, but also far more cruel. And worst of all, she made it seem careless. Carelessly cruel. Aggravating him had become her primary source of amusement in absence of humans to play with.

"I keep all my promises," The Doctor had replied finally, pressing his fingers to his chin and wondering how she was going to move the next piece in the game she'd started. He reminded himself to keep his volatile temper in check. Every time he lost his temper, she won. Every time he stormed out, she won. She always won. There was nothing like the oldest friend for knowing which buttons to push. 

He'd then have the added punishment of Nardole scolding him like a mother hen, pretending to spout of what River would have wanted when River would have delighted in having a fellow psychopath around. It was Nardole's fault they were in this situation in the first place. All that bull about "extremis" and "virtue". Nardole would whine about vows and morals as if the woman who'd charged him was the paragon of virtue herself. 

Missy scoffed so violently he was half afraid she'd hurt herself. Her head lolled round to survey him through ice-blue, shadowed eyes, her upper body moving round. She sat, twisted on the floor, a sneer on her face that would have sent mere mortals scuttling for the nearest cover. He was made of harder stuff. Frankly, he was just glad she'd continued to engage. 

"You throw 'I promise' around like confetti on a human wedding day," she sneered, over emphasising the promise in her favourite childish sing song voice. "And you're trying to tell me you've kept every single promise you've made? How many people have died? How many people have you betrayed? Tell me Doctor, I'm _dying_ to know."

He couldn't disagree with her there. How many people _had_ died or been betrayed through circumstance over his many, many years flying about the universe? He'd promised River forever and only been able to deliver her a portion of that time. And he hadn't even been able to save her. He pushed down the memories and the guilt associated with River, all fire and passion and gone. Missy could taste weakness. He could see the sneer twisting into bared teeth and a triumphant smile. He cleared his throat. 

"I keep them where I can," he amended, "But sometimes circumstances are beyond my control."

Missy repeated his words back to him in a twisted mockery, lowering herself to her elbows and kicking booted heels against the metal floor. The sound echoed. She stopped, her eyes dangerous. 

"You poor, tortured soul you," she dragged out the words, her lower lip jutting out dramatically. "But tell me, please, I really am curious. What is it, exactly, that makes you decide if a promise is worth keeping?"

"You do know rephrasing the question isn't going to make me answer it, don't you?" The Doctor pointed out. Missy huffed, pushing herself to her feet to wander the boundary line between them. The walls weren't up, but she always made a point of staying within the hexagon. He knew it was to remind him that she was a prisoner, his prisoner. 

"Alright then," She mused, trailing her fingers through the air where the invisible barrier usually sat. "Let's go back to a situation. Say, the graveyard. With she-who-must-not-be-named," Missy turned to dramatically whisper _Clara_ over her shoulder before continuing her narrative as if she hadn't just reminded him that he had failed. "With the robo-boyfriend. _You_ said that love, that pesky human emotion, was a promise. But you loved that frizzy haired semi-mayfly didn't you? What did you promise her, Doctor? Did you promise her your hearts? Did you keep that promise?"

She wasn't just taunting him now, she was digging the knife into his hearts and twisting viciously. Clara was pushing it, but River, River was off-limits. It stung in ways he didn't know. 

"Stop it," he said through gritted teeth, eyes sparkling dangerously. 

"Oh," Missy giggled, "I seemed to have touched a nerve. Was love not a promise? Did you keep that promise?"

"I never hurt River," He started, and then he stopped. Because he had hurt River. Bow tie had hurt River over and over and over and barely thought of it, to the point where River was convinced he hadn't loved her at all. Bow-tie had hurt River, and he had tried his best to fix it. He still wasn't sure he had. Missy lifted her chin triumphantly. 

"That's another promise you didn't keep then," she said lightly, "So love doesn't make you keep a promise, nor does preservation for human life-"

"What do you want from me?" The Doctor interrupted suddenly, pushing himself out of his chair to join her at the boundary line, eyebrows furious. Missy barely blinked, dropping her voice to a hiss. 

"I want to know why you never keep your promises," She spat, "Except the ones that cause other people pain."

He threw his hands in the air, turning away for a moment before turning back, angrier than he had been before. 

"You wanted me to save you," He growled, pointing a finger in Missy's direction. "You asked me to save you. As your friend. And I did. You accepted the consequences and I am sorry that this isn't to your liking but we are both stuck here. That promise is keeping me in one place, Missy, and it's keeping people safe. From the both of us."

"You aren't a prisoner here," Missy shot back, eyes flaring, stepping up so the Doctor's pointed finger poked her chest. She took a fleeting triumph at the speed he pulled his finger back away from her chest as if she'd burnt him. "Why did you promise on the Pryordian Chapter? Is that what it takes for you to keep a Rassilon-damned promise? Is that what it takes for you to feel _oblidged_ to actually keep it?"

"Why are you so damn concerned with what reasons I have for keeping a promise?" The Doctor roared. 

"Because you promised me you wouldn't run," she snapped, finally, her temper flaring, a violent streak of light in the dark. "You promised me that you would stay. That if we left, we'd leave together. Do you remember making that promise? You swore on the very mountainside of our childhood and then you broke it. You promised you wouldn't run, Doctor, and look at you now. You never stopped. So that is why I want to know why _this_ promise means so much more to you than that one."

She stopped, blinked shining eyes and took a deep breath through a locked jaw. Then she turned away, and somehow watching her turn his back startled the Doctor out of his shock. 

"I promised my best friend that I would never leave him," The Doctor said quietly, his voice low and dangerous and challenging. "But he never promised he'd never leave me. In fact, I only ran when it became _clear_ that my best friend didn't exist. I keep my promises. Always. But what happens when the person you promise changes, right before your eyes?"

Missy snorted, her hands on her hips and taking deep breaths towards the ceiling to calm her homicidal thoughts - there weren't any collateral's for her to destroy and killing the Doctor (while it would feel amazing in the moment) wasn't a viable option. 

"I never changed," She said firmly, "Not until I realised that you would run, you would always run. You would never choose me."

"You wanted me to stay on Gallifrey to prove my loyalty to you?" The Doctor asked incredulously, "You can't be serious."

"Why not?" Missy span around again, stepping back into the gap. "You promised. And I had no one who cared enough about me to make a promise. Turned out I had no one who cared enough about me to _keep_ one either."

Her anger burned brighter than any star he had seen. This wasn't just cabin fever, this was an anger that had festered since their youth. Days long past, lingering at the edges of his memory. Hazy but oh so clear. 

"You wanted me to stay out of loyalty," the Doctor said quietly, his anger dissipating, stepping back from the dais. He saw the confusion in Missy's eyes under the simmering ice-cold anger. "But you weren't willing to respect other people. You weren't willing to stay with me for any reason. We made that promise as children. We were barely two-hundred years old. And I meant it. I meant every word of that promise Missy. I promised you under the tree after you'd been beaten for disobedience, that one day we would run away from Gallifrey, away from their society that punished us for being different. But we grew up. We joined the Time Lords. And we changed. I tried to hang onto you for as long as I could, but Missy, you weren't the boy I made that promise to."

Missy took a deep breath, nostrils flaring. Her eyes shimmered. 

"So, I couldn't keep my promise to never leave you," The Doctor continued truthfully, "It was one of the hardest things I had done but I accepted that we weren't meant to stay together, that my childhood friend was gone. All I've ever wanted was my friend back. So, in a way I did keep my promise to you. I took my memory of that boy with me to the stars. I just had to leave who you'd become behind to do so."

It was so hard to be angry with him sometimes. But Missy had been stoking this anger for night on centuries. 

"You didn't try," she sniffed. 

"Of course I did," The Doctor replied promptly. "Why do you think I promised to watch over you for a thousand years?"

Missy started and turned back to him with narrowed eyes. He shrugged self-consciously. 

"You're not the only one who wants their friend back," he admitted. "I'm keeping my promise Missy, in the only way you and I can. And it's going to be painful, and Rassilon-knows we've changed. We aren't those two boys under the tree overlooking the citadel. We have seen too much, we have hurt each other and we have saved each other. And I am willing to try, if you are. I'm willing to keep my promise. I'm willing to never leave you. But we can't be friends when you're trying to overthrow things as quickly as I'm trying to establish them."

A muscle in Missy's jaw jumped. 

"You always were good with words," She said thickly, turning away. "Go away now Doctor. I don't want to fight you."

He didn't leave, he hovered. Missy rolled her eyes. 

"I get it," she snapped, "You're trying to tell me that friendship and loyalty and a misplaced sense of trust and obligation are why you're keeping this promise. I get it, now go."

The Doctor opened his mouth as if to say something and then seemed to think better of it. She was relieved when he slowly started towards the door. He dragged his feet, Missy turning her back to the door, her back to him. 

"You're wrong you know," he said quietly, "I made this promise because you asked me to. I'm keeping it because of you."

And then he left. The air felt a little thicker, the walls a little closer, and suddenly Missy wondered if opening that particular can of worms had been worth the emotional wringer they had both just been put through. It certainly gave her plenty to think on.

When the Doctor returned the next evening though, they were both treading carefully, and Missy made a much more concerted effort to engage with his convoluted process, and he was significantly more lenient with her occasional violent outbursts. Somehow, in airing that bit of their past, they had formed a tentative truce.


End file.
